Op-Ed: Obama's police state — the net widens

Is the Obama Administration worse than the Bush Administration when it comes to privacy and surveillance? Some people think so.

In the classic George Orwell novel Animal Farm, right at the end, the animals look through the window and see the pigs - their new masters - arguing with their human business partners. Somebody had been caught cheating at cards, and before the eyes of the bemused creatures, the faces change from man to pig, from pig to man; they are unable to tell the difference.

A short video just released by BrasscheckTV compares the use of government surveillance under the Obama Administration with the previous one, and concludes that we have indeed been fooled again. Check it out for yourself, and see how much of it you agree with, especially the excellent analysis by former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Did you realise that FBI agents can access your personal records - including your medical records - on their own authority, in effect by issuing and signing their own warrants?

There can be no doubt that government surveillance has increased enormously since 9/11, and that this has been sold to us on the pretext of keeping us safe from those wicked terrorists. But what happens when the government itself becomes a terrorist? On August 4 last year, a man was shot dead by armed police in North London. Check out what the legal authorities here have done about holding his killer to account. It won't take long.

So, is Obama worse than Bush was, or McCain would, have been? We don't know how many warrants McCain would have applied for, or to what extent he would have trampled over freedom if the Republicans had won. What is a near certainty though is that if McCain had won, things would have been a lot worse in the Gulf, in particular there would have been some sort of attack on Iran, and who knows where that might have led - possibly to World War III.

Is totalitarianism inevitable in the United States and everywhere else? Some people believe so, but it isn't that long since the British Government was talking about introducing compulsory ID cards. That plan has now been mothballed, for the time being, so it will be sometime before we are all walking around with microchips in the backs of our necks. For the moment, they can only treat dogs like this. They will do it to us to eventually, but only if we let them.

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com